Metatdata could have prevented 9/11? Bullshit

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/424-national-security/21358-pauley-vs-leon

In concluding as he did that “conventional intelligence gathering could not detect diffuse filaments connecting al-Qaeda” Judge Pauley chose to ignore post 9/11 reports that the intelligence community had plenty of information to “detect diffuse filaments” without metadata collections. What was lacking was the competency citizens had a right to expect from those charged with protecting the country.

According to a report in the Washington Post, the F.B.I. had been aware for many years before 9/11 that suspected terrorists were receiving training in American flight schools. It took no action to apprehend or specifically identify them. According to a report in the New York Times, Abdul Hakim Murad (who was convicted in 1996 of conspiring and attempting to blow up 12 commercial airliners while flying over the ocean) confessed to authorities following his arrest in the Philippines that he planned to use his flight training to “fly a plane into C.I.A headquarters in Langley, Va. or another federal building.” Rodolfo Mendoza, a Philippine intelligence investigator, told CNN that that information was shared with the F.B.I. in 1995. A 1999 analysis prepared for the National Intelligence Council said: “Suicide bomber(s)belonging to al Qaeda’s Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives . . . into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House.

In July 2001 an F.B.I. agent in Phoenix told F.B.I. headquarters it should investigate Middle Eastern men enrolled in American flight schools and mentioned Osama bin Laden by name. In his memo he suggested men in flight school might be planning terrorist attacks. A CBS report describes in considerable detail other clues the government had that terrorist attacks might be contemplated, giving specifics as to the kinds of activities contemplated. In a press conference following 9/11 Ari Fleischer, the press secretary said: “It is widely known that we had information that bin Laden wanted to attack the United States or United States interests abroad.”

What is now known is that it was not the absence of a program ignoring Americans’ constitutional rights that permitted 9/11. Collecting “bulk telephony metadata” does nothing to correct the intelligence failures that permitted 9/11 to happen. Those intelligence failures were failures by those in charge to do what citizens had a right to expect them to do.

[jmowreader]

1. 100 percent of the reason 9/11 happened can be summed up in one sentence

This is Supertramp's "A Soapbox Opera." Play it, marvel in its beauty, and listen to the very first line:

The first line is "I hear only what I want to hear." That describes Shrub Bush to a tee.

[Demeter]

2. The PTB were too busy stealing an election and kissing Bandar's ass

to pay attention to the nation's priorities. They had their own business to transact. And when 9/11 gave them the perfect excuse, they grabbed and ran with it.

It was malign neglect and arrogance.

[liberal N proud]

3. There becomes too much data to sift through

We are at a bigger threat now due to the mass collection of data than ever simply because there is no way they can sort through that much data and find the needle that is going to warn us of another attack.